The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

A new bipartisan bill would eliminate a controversial source of funding for one federal marijuana seizure program. Last week, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) introduced the “Stop Civil Asset Forfeiture Funding for Marijuana Suppression Act.” The bill is quite simple: It would prevent the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from using federal forfeiture funds to pay for its Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program. Additionally, the bill would ban transferring property to federal, state or local agencies if that property “is used for any purpose pertaining to” the DEA’s marijuana eradication program.

Under this program, the DEA receives federal forfeiture funds ($18 million in 2013), which it then funnels to over 120 local and state agencies to eliminate marijuana grow sites nationwide. Last year, the program was responsible for over 6,300 arrests, eradicating over 4.3 million marijuana plants and seizing $27.3 million in assets. More than half of all plants destroyed were in California, which also accounted for over one-third of seized assets and nearly 40 percent of the arrests.

The United States Capitol.

Across the country, drug cops have ensnared countless innocent Americans. In February 2014, the DEA seized a college student’s entire life savings, without finding any drugs or charging him with a drug crime. The student, Charles Clarke, has since partnered with the Institute for Justice and sued to win back his cash. In Georgia, the Governor’s Task Force for Drug Suppression raided an Atlanta retiree’s garden last year after spotting suspicious-looking green plants. But the plants weren’t marijuana: They were okra. The task force received federal forfeiture funding through the DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.

Groups that want to reform the nation’s drug laws, like the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Policy Project, are backing Lieu and Amash’s legislation. But regardless of how one views legalizing marijuana or the war on drugs, funding programs with civil forfeiture is unconscionable. Unlike criminal forfeiture, which occurs after a criminal conviction is obtained, under civil forfeiture, law enforcement does not need to convict, much less charge people with a crime to take their property.

Federal agencies pursue both civil and criminal forfeiture cases, but the former is far more common. Analysis by the Institute for Justice found 78 percent of properties in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) system were seized for civil forfeiture, compared with 22 percent for criminal forfeiture.

Civil forfeiture is fraught with a staggering lack of due process. Under federal law, owners must prove their innocence in court to regain their seized property. Property owners in civil forfeiture proceedings do not have a right to an attorney, rendering it even more difficult to prevail. Meanwhile, seizing agencies can keep up to 100 percent of the proceeds of a forfeited property. That creates a perverse incentive to “police for profit.”

Over the past thirty years, forfeiture has grown tremendously for the federal government. Back in 1985, the DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture Fund had $27 million in proceeds. By 2013, that number topped over $2 billion. This year, in a budget request, the DEA wanted over $210 million in “reimbursable funds” from the Asset Forfeiture Fund.